Friday, February 23, 2007

Try doing this in a Blue State

My "hero of the week" is a retired, 70-year-old ex-Marine named Allan Clady, who, when attacked by muggers on a cruise-line tour bus in Costa Rica, killed one of the assailants with his bare hands. This prompted the other riders to defend themselves, and forced the remaining attackers to flee.

Actually, there's another hero in this story: the local police chief, Luis Hernandez, who confirmed no one would be charged in the incident, saying, "They were in the right to defend themselves."

Imagine that - a cop standing up for a sound moral principle.

If this incident had occurred on a double-decker in Manhattan, Ron Kuby would have gotten on the case immediately, defending the "rights" of the deceased thug, and convincing a jury to levy ruinous fines against Clady, with perhaps some jail time thrown in - as a lesson to all septugenarians who would violate the civil rights of muggers.

Many Latin American nations like Costa Rica, when they were founded, used the example of the early United States to build on, in terms of fundamental legal and moral principles. Costa Rica stuck to theirs, apparently, while we long ago abandoned them. There's a lesson here somewhere.